Friday Nights at youth club

So as I mentioned in the past, on Friday nights I run a youth club program for teens who have intellectual disabilities. Lately this has been the only leisure I have experienced on a Friday night. The last few weeks have been; Halloween party, movies, skating and this Friday the ceramic cafe. The Halloween party was challenging we are now a combination of the two youth groups together as one with 3 staff and two volunteers. If every one shows up there are 17 teens. So the Halloween party was our group at the YMCA with the YMCA's teen group. It was great fun! The teens all dressed up and so did the staff. They played all kinds of games and went through a haunted house and even had a pinata. They loved it! I didn't do anything else for Halloween party I didn't even go to an "adult" Halloween and It didn't bother me. For me I got to experience leisure in the fulfillment that I got knowing that they had a blast.

Next was skating, quiet the leisure activity..... you have to remember that many of our teens also have many physical limitations and skating is almost impossible or it literally is impossible for most of them. So a lot of them still showed up to the area however they did not skate. The reason we still pick skating as an activity is because we are limited in our options for activities doe to budget and location so we still going skating once. There where 4 teens who brought their skates 2 of them only lasted 15 min on the ice the other 25 min and the last two skated the whole time with some breaks. All the other teens watched from up stairs and colored or just socialized.
What I found to be the most surprising and what reinforces for me why I do this job is that the teens who couldn't skate still chose to stay. Many of the parents asked them if they wanted to go back home since they weren't going to skate but they all wanted to stay. I guess the activity its self is not as important as just being together with their friends.

This past Friday was the ceramic cafe. This activity is great however it costs us a lot of our budget. We get the birthday group rate which is 15$ a person plus tax. We ask the teens to bring 10$ and our budget pays the rest. (our boss's rules) if it was up to me I would ask them to bring 15$ I mean 15$ is a cheap night.

N e ways they get to pick from a bunch of stuff and paint what ever they pick. All of them enjoy it except the boys get bored pretty fast and quiet hyper and unfortunately this Friday I was tired after being sick and already working all day so I had a lot less Patience then usual. But it went really well over all and it cost a total of 218$ which ended up being 80$ from our budget.
Conclusion: leisure is expensive!

struggling with this leisure activity

So there is this activity/pass time/ I'm not sure what it is to me....
But you call it jogging. A while ago I chose to start jogging to get back in shape also its free and easy. Easy.... well the way it goes is some months I do great and jog 3 times a week or more and then I give up then try again and I still haven't got back up to three times a week but just as I'm motivated again winter is setting in. The solution to that the pool across the street from my apartment is free :) so when its to cold or raining I can go swimming. The other reason I like jogging is because I can experience flow so it can be more then just a must to get back in shape. The last two weeks I haven't really slept and so I jogged one night and had a good sleep so hear it is I'm jogging again so I can, get in shape/experience flow and be able to sleep.
Right now its Monday and in half an hour it will be my first jog of the week and my plan is jog tonight then swimming wed and Thursday.
My brand new I POD shuffle which I bought mostly as a motivator since its so small and just clamps on, to bad the Ipod can't go in the water.
So here I go I will run to try and get that flow~

Blog summery #2

Since the last blog summery I have become a little more leisure educated as is the point of our class so I would hope so. The time I was very upset and stopped to think how I could make my night a leisure experience and I thought about my state of mind proves that I am now more leisurely educated.

I identify in another one of my blogs that I think I'm a leisure educator because I am a recreation animator however I don't directly talk with any of my teens about the benefits of leisure. The most I do is ask them what they like and then we try to do those activities so they can experience leisure. Could I do more to be a leisure educator??

Clearly my blogs show that I value leisure not so much one specific activity but any leisure that brings my friends and I together. I value leisure enough that I work with my teens so they can experience leisure too!

Leisure a state of mind

So this past weekend started out leisurely because we were supposed to go out for my friend and I's birthday. The plans were to go to Three Amigos for diner and then St. Sulpice. Like usual every time we make plans and their set my wonderful friend decides last minute to change them. So diner instead would be at her place and instead of St. Sulpice we would go to whinnies. Long story short I'm not a push over but had to agree to change the plans for the sake of everyone else as well. I was s pissed! I was thinking great I have to go and fake be happy now when I don't even want to see her because I'm so mad. then I remembered "it's a state of mind" So I had to take some deep breaths and change my state of mind if I was going to experience any leisure. (or I could have some drinks that would change my state of mind) Not to worry I took some deep breaths changed my state of mind by focusing on all the people that would be there that I really wanted to see. Once I arrived I was over it and had a great leisurely night!

Leisurly weekends

I try to experience as much leisure as possible on the weekends because there is little time for leisure during the week, or so I thought then I remember what leisure I have during the week that I look forward to, Its when my best friend calls me from Europe! I love talking to her and I'm excited for when she comes back because will be room mates. So that is my little leisure experience I get during the week, a 30 min phone conversation.... at least school is almost over for the holidays :)

Becoming a leisure educator

What do I need to know and what do I need to do to become a leisure educator?
What I need to know about leisure is everything I have learned in this class like the definition of leisure, what flow is, my values and skills on leisure, my core leisure interests etc. All this gives me prof of just how important it is for everyone to have leisure in their lives. Without the genuine belief in leisure I would not be bale to leisure educated another person.
I feel I help bring leisure to peoples lives however I would not say that I am a leisure educator. For 6 years I have been a recreation Animator at WIAIH so I have animator all types of recreation programs for teens and adults. My goal has been to try and provide leisure to improve their quality of life. In many cases I have succeeded. Where I see the success the most is in two programs specifically called Friday Night Club and Youth Club. FNC's participants are all over 18 and YC's participants are all under 18. However the participants look froward to these programs all week. They get a chance to socialize and do what other "normal" people their age would do. It gives them a sense of belonging and competence. Their self esteem improves through the activities and the socializing. I believe that some may even experience flow.
However I do not feel that I am educating them on leisure, so I'm not really a leisure educator. I help them discover leisure in themselves which is one part of being a leisure educator and sometimes I have to give reasons of why participating in a certain activity is beneficial to a participant. So maybe I am a bit of leisure educator in an informal way....

My Fabulous leisure week-end!

My fabulous weekend started on Thursday Oct 9th MY BIRTHDAY!!!! It was also my friend Mary's birthday the day before mine. My best friend and room mate cooked dinner for us and some close friends. Saturday night out for our birthday's also some shopping. October is my favorite month!! Thanksgiving on Sunday with the family then pumpkin carving on Monday then Monday night my birthday present the Jason Mraz concert!! HE IS SO HOT!!!! I had a great weekend full of activities that were intrinsically motivated and my state of mind was great for a leisurely weekend!